Amazon
recently made headlines by filing a lawsuit against 1,000 people accused of
filing fake product or book reviews.
Although I applaud their efforts to do the impossible – weed out people
who posted reviews because they were paid to do so – what this whole exercise
should call into question is the book review process itself. Let’s take a look.
Who
is reviewing the reviewers? Why should I
listen to what anyone says about anything?
Who is qualified to be a book reviewers?
How do you weigh a review over another? Can we even trust the reviews are legitimate
and not done by slimy competitors or paid for “fans”?
The
digital world, like the brick and mortar one, is filled with players, playa
haters, losers, liars, cheats, criminals, and incompetents. But the online world makes it quick and easy
to con, scam, and virally disturb things.
Instahoax should be a word, because the online world allows anyone to be
anybody, to say anything, even anonymously, and one comment can disturb
everything. There’s no real
accountability here. Someone, with
motives or mental state unknown, could post something that is believed to be true,
and can cause a subsequent storm that ruins reputations, leads to violence,
causes stocks to tumble, hurts a business, or bullies young, impressionable
souls.
All
reviews are bullshit until proven otherwise. Why? Because reviewers or reviews can be:
1.
Paid
for
2.
Done
out of jealousy/anger
3.
Posted
by a competitor seeking to undermine another
4.
Written
by someone not qualified to judge what they review
5.
Placed
by people who are crazy, dumb, or intoxicated
6.
Based
on an arbitrary incident or moment that doesn’t truly reflect the totality of
the experience
7.
In
a poor position to judge, due to a lack of experience
8.
Misguided
by poor judgement
9.
Driven
by lousy ethics and values
10.
So
free to say anything that they will go overboard simply because they think it’s
funny
11.
Egotistical
and lack compassion
12.
Produced
by a racist, sexist, or biased individual
The
process of reviewing books is tough enough.
Who determines which books get reviewed?
That’s the first issue to examine. Out of a million titles released in
2015, only a handful get reviewed by authoritative outlets.
Next
issue: How do you judge a book? Sure you
can look at certain technical aspects but then it comes down to feelings and
opinions. What informs these judgements
and how can a reader give weight to a review unless he or she understands what
this reviewer tends to like or hate?
Book
reviews can be compromised. Some
publications charge for reviews, such as Kirkus, Foreword, and Publishers
Weekly Select. Other places allow for
user reviews, such as Amazon, but it’s hard to know what motivated a reviewer, nor is one in position to judge the reviewer’s credentials. Then there are the many bloggers and random
online reviewers out there, some of whom may be compromised by financial,
political, or other considerations.
I
rarely buy a book based on a review, and when I do it’s not so much because a
review gushed over it but merely alerted me that such a book is available. I’m not a snob but generally look at The New
York Times Book Review and The Wall Street Journal to tell me what books are
out there. I also like to see what the
New York Post has to say.
We
need a review of the book review process, the review outlets, and the reviewers
themselves. We can’t sue over false
reviewers, bad reviews, or media outlets that don’t review the right books, but
we should be cautious when we let reviewers guide our economic decisions, movie
choices, or book selections.
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog
are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter
@theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more
important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by
BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2015
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